Rebel Strikes gold

LucasArts has announced that Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike, the GameCube exclusive follow-up to the console's best-selling launch title Rogue Leader, has gone gold, and according to UK distributor Activision, it will be released over here on November 7th.

Developed by Factor 5, Rebel Strike gives players control of characters central to the original Star Wars movie trilogy, giving us the chance to act out and elaborate on events featured on the big screen - fighting aerial battles on various planets, and, for the first time in the series, even hopping out of the cockpit and fighting in third-person, on-foot missions. Although we didn't think much of these at E3 this year (nor did we particularly cherish the way the Imperial walkers handled), it does have arguably the coolest bit of the whole movie trilogy - the speeder battle in the forests of Endor, as well as two-player corporate and versus modes.

Rogue Leader was one of the best reasons to own a GameCube when it launched, so we'll be bringing you our thoughts on this one at the earliest possible opportunity. It's out in the US on October 21st, so we'll see if our importery friends can hook us up shortly after that...